Yusuf Alli, Abuja
SUSPENDED Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property, Okoi Obono-Obla has blamed his travails on Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and some of his aides.
He blamed the Deputy Chief of Staff in the Presidency, Mr. Ade Ipaye and the Aide-de-Camp to the Vice President for trying to influence his panel which he resisted.
Obono-Obla said he incurred their wrath because “I refused to do their dictates and bidding.” He said he was open to any probe to prove his innocence.
Obla, who made his position known in an August 26, 2019 memo to President Muhammadu Buhari, said fake petitions and security reports were written to justify nefarious plans to remove him.
The letter reads: “My travails started with my appointment as Chairman of the Special Presidential Investigation Panel for the Recovery of Public Property in July 2017.
“The Panel was constituted when Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo was Acting President. He accordingly appointed one of his Special Assistants, Adeniran Gbolahan, as secretary.
”Later I had a bitter disagreement concerning whether or not the Panel should wait for mandates from the Vice President before it can commence any investigation. I was of the view that since the Panel was set up pursuant to the Recovery of Public Property (Special Provisions) Act, it should execute its mandate in accordance with the Law setting it up. This resulted in a bitter row with the Secretary to the panel.
“The secretary enjoyed the support of the vice president through the Deputy Chief of Staff, Ade Ipaye. Mr. Ipaye sided Mr. Gbolahan against me.
“Thereafter, Mr. Ipaye wrote to me instructing me to remove “Presidential” from the name of the Panel. I disagreed with him on the grounds of procedure. I told him it was the SGF who should write such a letter.
“Also I told him that since my instrument of appointment reads “Presidential”, it would be inappropriate to change such without the consent of the SGF.
Read Also: They want to break me, says Obono-Obla
“Mr Ipaye then wrote a letter stopping an investigation of a case of contract scam reported by Nigerian Ports Authority. Then again Mr Ipaye wrote a letter to me instructing me not to investigate any case without the mandate of the Vice President.
“I started getting worried over the undue interest and unwarranted interference in the affairs of the Panel, I vividly remembered how in February 2018, Mr Ipaye wrote a query to me when I started investigating a case of misappropriation of N10billion allegedly belonging to National Health Insurance Scheme by the Auditor-General of the Federation.
“I was also persecuted by the National Assembly! The whole issue of my purported certificate forgery was masterminded by the House of Representatives to get back at me because I had the guts to initiate an investigation against some powerful senators.
“I am open to any probe, but also the matters I investigate are facts against the Nigerian people and I’m not deterred. Someday Nigerians will know who their true enemies are.”
Although he said in 2018 he alerted President Muhammadu Buhari on the interferences faced by the panel, nothing was done.
Leave a Reply